


Lay Me Down

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dead Like Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Ijemanja</p>
    </blockquote>





	Lay Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ijemanja

 

 

"You have to try new things," Daisy was saying to Roxie when George took her customary seat in the booth. "A little variety keeps things . . . perky."

"Try new things?" Mason's head rose from the table. "Ah, Daisy, do you -"

"Not with you, Mason," Daisy said quickly. "Never you. Give up the dream. It's old."

"Why must you always break my heart, Daisy?"

"It's just life."

"Speaking of old," George said, "something smells."

Roxie tilted her head to the side, her gaze far from amused. "Mason's been sleeping in a dumpster. He shouldn't even be allowed at the table."

"Ew! God, get yourself an apartment and a shower." George scooted closer to Daisy and Roxie despite the fact that Mason sat all by his lonesome across the table. "Forget at the table. Why was he allowed inside?"

"They condemned the last place I had," Mason moped. "Something about asbestos."

"Kiffany doesn't come in until later," Roxie explained, "and I ain't gonna touch him to drag him out."

"Point." George waved at a waitress and the woman held up a finger to let her know that she would be over in a minute. "What's this about trying new things?"

"Mm, say you're a vanilla kind of gal, Georgia. You like vanilla ice cream." Daisy clasped her hands on George's shoulders and squeezed.

"Hey, why is it vanilla? Can't I be rocky road? Or something more exciting?"

Daisy ignored her. "I'm trying to convince Roxie that it's okay to have strawberry syrup on her vanilla ice cream. It adds spice to life."

"They're talking about sex," Mason finally confided to George.

"Oh god," she groaned, "can I just have my Post-It and go?"

"I don't want my men with strawberry syrup," Roxie said, handing George a Post-It while she stared Daisy down. "Any kind of syrup. I don't need syrup. If someone needs syrup, it'd be George."

"Just because I like my oatmeal and raisins does not make me vanilla. Oatmeal and raisins are comforting."

Daisy sighed. "Ten years of oatmeal and raisins means you're stuck in a rut. Roxie's right. Maybe you should think about expanding your horizons."

"I don't always eat oatmeal. I've strayed."

"When was the last time you had sex, Georgia?"

George sputtered and rose from her seat. "You know what? I'm going to take my Post-It and leave. Okay? And Mason, don't come here tomorrow if you're not going to bathe."

"You can't keep it all pent up like that, Georgia. It's not healthy," Daisy called after her.

George wished Rube was back from wherever the hell he'd gone. Management issues in Africa? Damn him.

As she left, she heard Mason say, "I don't smell that bad, do I?"

*****

A college girl sat next to George on the bench. She had short blond hair and a long pretty face with blue, blue eyes. At least George assumed the girl was from a college or going to a college. She looked the sort. Not that George was looking at her too much.

George was mostly watching the search and rescue boats skim the surface of the water. The girl had her attention in the same direction.

"Do you think they'll find the body?" the girl finally asked.

George shrugged. "The lake isn't that big."

"The bottom's kind of muddy."

"You do have a point."

The girl gave the slightest smile. "Pretty morbid of us to sit here and wonder about it, isn't it?"

"I don't know. Tragedy attracts crowds." George gestured around them, at the small bunches of people scattered around the lakeshore. All of them watched and some of them held video cameras, a few of them doing as it as part of their job, the others for who knew what reasons.

"I guess." The girl swung her legs out and hopped to her feet. She turned. "I'm bored. Do you want to get some coffee?"

The soul of the unfortunate swimmer had already moved on. George had no reason to keep staring at the flashing lights on the boats. "Sure."

*****

"Mildred, huh? God, who named you?"

"My dad has strange taste in names," George sort of fibbed, taking a sip from her vanilla latte. "Otherwise he's a pretty cool guy."

"I wish I had a cool parent. Well, I suppose my dad is - at least, when he's not being my dad - but my mother has issues. `Don't even think about neglecting your studies,' she says." The girl grimaced, looked disgusted. "She didn't even want me to fly home from college for the week."

"She thinks you won't go back?"

"We're not even on break," the girl explained, "but I had to come home for some personal stuff. Still I don't know why she thinks I won't go back. It's not like I want to stick around her."

George could see where the girl was coming from. Maybe too well. It was strange how the girl would tilt her head sometimes or poke at her bagel. It tickled George`s memory as familiar. "Pain in the ass, huh?"

"Stick up her ass, actually. She's my mother . . . but sometimes I can see why my dad left and my sister stopped listening. I mean, she used to at least listen . . . Maybe, but I think she eventually gave up."

The latte was sitting bland on George's tongue. She swallowed quickly.

"That's shitty," she said, without specifying what was shitty for whom. Years later, space removed - had it actually been three years since she'd last driven by her mom's place? - she had come to understand herself better, and her mother. Too bad she couldn't rewind time and go back to when she was alive with some of her newly found wisdom.

But she rarely thought about that anymore.

"It's life." The girl glanced over George's shoulder and sighed. "Oh great. How do you feel about being approached by several great hulking pieces of manflesh who want to see if we want to have a little fun?"

"Ugly?"

"Old."

"Not high on my list. No."

"I thought so," and the girl leaned over the small table, pushing their drinks away with a careful hand, and kissed George.

Right. On. The lips.

The girl's lips were soft and the kiss was not a playful kiss. Not at all. The girl gave a soft little lick and a very serious, long press of her mouth against George's. It might have been really nice if it had been less public. Someplace where they weren't going to get stared at.

Tha didn't stop George's mouth from parting very slightly and sucking lightly on the girl's bottom lip.

This probably wasn't what Daisy meant when she said George should expand her horizons. Or maybe it was. Daisy had that thing about Vivian Leigh and her on the `verge' of becoming friends. That which she still enthused about whenever given an opportunity.

Their lip lock didn't last long and the girl was the first to pull away.

George managed to speak on her third attempt. "Like that won't encourage them."

"Yeah, well, sorry about that." The girl glanced at a clock hanging on the coffee shop wall. "It's an apology. I'm ditching you right now. Family commitment. Sorry."

The girl put a handful of money down on the table. "Coffee's on me. Hope I see you around, Millie."

She left swiftly and George could only stair at her retreating back through the glass door.

*****

The next morning George listlessly stirred her spoon in her oatmeal, sending the raisins whirling around and around.

"Are you going to eat that or play with it?" Daisy asked.

George mumbled, "Play."

Roxie stared and opened the appointment book, handing a Post-It to Daisy. George waited for hers, but didn't receive one.

"What about mine?"

"Not today."

Because she didn't want to believe it, it took George a moment to fully take in the situation. "Oh, fuck no. I can do my job. I never got any other death anniversary's off. This isn't fair."

"I don't make the assignments," Roxie said. "Think of it as a vacation day. Relax."

"What about Mason?"

Roxie smirked. "Kiffany wouldn't let him in."

*****

So George ended up buying a bunch of lilies and going to a graveyard. Her graveyard where her tombstone sat on the hill with the pretty view.

And somehow she wasn't so surprised when she saw the girl from the other day walking down the hill, towards her.

The girl was surprised, however. "What are you doing here?"

"Probably the same thing you are." A person came to a cemetery to visit with the dead. Or in, some cases, to come home and say hi to the fellow dead.

"Right." The girl shifted from foot to foot. "My sister. She's up there."

George's stomach twisted and turned and finally settled into place. Everything made sense now and that eerie familiarity was no longer eerie. "Oh."

"Yeah. She died ten years ago today. The entire family is coming out later, but I like to visit by myself." The girl - George's little sister - shrugged. "You know, you remind me of her. I mean, not exactly. More like you remind me of what she could have been, you know?"

"You would kiss your own sister?" George asked. How long had it been since she'd seen Reggie? Too long. Not since Reggie's last year of junior high when George had finally let her family go. As much as she could.

Reggie had grown into herself. Had changed like only time could change a person, but somewhere inside the new Reggie was an echo of the old Reggie. An echo that had stirred the feeling of familiarity within George.

"I might have," Reggie said, her back straight and her face set. George's sister wanted to freak her out.

George only smiled. "Maybe I would have kissed my sister, too, if I'd known her better."

" . . . you had a sister, too?"

"Yeah."

"Those flowers are for her then."

George glanced down at the simple bouquet, wondering what she had missed in her sister's life since she had stopped paying attention. She didn't know. She probably wouldn't ever know unless she did something really stupid and George - George had ten years as a reaper under her belt.

She didn't know what was best, not like she had thought she had during that first year of her death, but she knew what she wasn't going to do. She wasn't going to haunt Reggie again after so long.

"No," George finally said, "these are for you." She handed the lilies over to Reggie.

"Not your sister?" Reggie was glancing around, looking for a suspect grave that might belong to `Millie's' sister.

"They're yours."

"Um -"

"I'm not going to argue with you. I have an important appointment to keep." George kissed her lovely, grown up sister on the forehead. "Have a nice life, Reggie.

When Reggie finally called after her, "I didn't tell you my name!" George was gone.

Someone had a date with an automobile and she had to be there. She was responsible. She did what she was supposed to do.

She would never not miss her sister, but she couldn't keep her. Not even if Reggie walked right into her arms.

 


End file.
